Precision BioSciences, Inc., the world leader in rational genome engineering, announced that it has filed a lawsuit against Cellectis SA and its affiliates Cellectis bioresearch and Cellectis bioresearch Inc. in the US District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina.
The lawsuit seeks a ruling that Cellectis’ manufacture, use and sale of certain engineered meganucleases infringe US Patent No. 8,021,867, a recently-issued patent related to Precision’s Directed Nuclease Editor (DNE) meganuclease technology. The lawsuit requests monetary damages as well as a permanent injunction preventing Cellectis from making, using, selling, offering for sale, or importing infringing engineered meganucleases in the United States.
“Precision’s recognized leadership position in rational genome engineering is based on superior results achieved in the lab,” stated Derek Jantz, VP of Scientific Development at Precision. “Unfortunately, it appears that Cellectis continues to refuse to compete with us solely on the merits of its own technology. Precision therefore felt it was necessary to take strong legal action to stop Cellectis’ unauthorized and wrongful use of our valuable intellectual property.”
Precision’s suit against Cellectis for infringement of the ’867 patent follows more than three years of unsuccessful legal maneuvering by Cellectis to block Precision’s introduction of its ground-breaking DNE meganuclease technology. Last week, Cellectis announced two lawsuits that it filed against Precision over six months ago under US Patent Nos. 7,842,489 and 7,897,372. Precision has denied that it has infringed either patent and considers both suits to be nuisances. Notably, Cellectis’ announcement failed to mention that the United States Patent and Trademark Office has ordered a reexamination of the ’372 patent, agreeing with Precision that there are substantial new questions regarding patentability that require further examination by the USPTO.
Cellectis has a history of initiating litigation against Precision based on flawed intellectual property. In March of 2008, Cellectis filed suit against Precision in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina on two in-licensed patents. In a subsequent re-examination of those patents, the USPTO twice rejected all of the claims that Cellectis asserted against Precision, resulting in the court’s entry of an order staying the litigation in its entirety.
“It is revealing that Cellectis, a publicly traded company, instigated two patent infringement lawsuits against Precision without publicly disclosing them to its stakeholders for more than six months,” stated Todd Melby, CFO of Precision BioSciences. “Frankly, Cellectis’ multi-year effort to overtake Precision by filing lawsuit after lawsuit seems to have been an exceedingly poor use of investor funds and management resources. Since the first litigation was filed by Cellectis in 2008, Precision’s technology lead has grown, our market presence has increased, and our revenues have increased exponentially.”
“Remarkably, Cellectis recently claimed in a press release that the ‘867 ‘patent is too narrow to cover its meganucleases’ and ‘should not interfere,’” said Matthew Kane, CEO of Precision BioSciences. “We have found meganucleases that we believe would infringe the '867 patent described in over a dozen recent scientific publications and patent applications from Cellectis. We are thrilled to hear that Cellectis has no intention of utilizing any of this material. We invite Cellectis to back up their statement by promptly agreeing to a court-approved stipulation restraining it from making, using, or selling materials within the scope of the ’867 patent.”
Precision's mission is to utilize its engineered endonuclease technology to become the world leader in the field of genomic molecular biology.